Final Words
by JapanCat
Summary: A reflection on on the last few years before the settling of one king and a reflection of power.


**Title: Final Words  
****I don't own it. Seriously, why do we have to do these?**

When I was still in pwer, I didn't go out in the streets when it could be avoided. The bows were all so fake and just part of the show. The smiles they had on their faces- those smiles of the ignorant and cursed to be there-were masks, one sided arguments. I couldn't stand those faces. I knew the woman with the biggest smile was cursing me in her mind- I was the one who took her beloved son from her. What happened to their children's fathers? Their husbands? Brothers, cousins, uncles, friends, neighbors? _"Why couldn't you find a cure so my mother wouldn't have to die from that disease? Why couldn't you stop focusing on war and help the people at home? Those men you killed couldn't have done more for us.!_"

There were tears on an old woman's face. A soldier stopped and asked her why she was crying on the joyous day when she would see her king. And she could only say as she wiped the tears from her leathery cheeks, "Oh, I'm so happy, Captain-is it? I'm so happy because I finally got to see this wonderful ruler we have! If only I could kiss him- I- I- would kiss his feet even if I wouldn't be able to get back up again with these hips. I- love- you- so- so..." She burst into tears. Ther other women gathered around her whispering all the joyous things that came that day.

And a paradox- a child said, "Gee, I thought he'd be bigger" which cost him someone spitting in his face and one of my hopeless fanatics giving him a swift kick in the ribs as they yelled something about how they should go to "that shit-hole Grandara" if they wanted to say that again.

...Those faces- they were supposed to be the color in these gray villages but they only blended into their surroundings. But yet most of them were for the most part content. The revolutionaries were easily fought off by the villagers. The soldiers that died in battle were easily compensated within minutes of enlistments. The world and its miserable inhabitants- they were all in my hands. Those revolucionaries... If they really really wanted me dead, then they wouldn't have allowed themselves to be finished so easily. Why is it that they claim to be born free and thus be allowed to live as such when they allowed themselves to be kept in chains? Was it that they didn't want to live in a state of absolute hopelessness but were also unwilling to put enough effort to cast off those chains? Either way, the "fans" overpowered them with their endless campaigning.

Funny how it was that that I made it from the lowest part of society to be an equal with Raizen. Chained to my father's sideonly by fear and ignorance of the world. And I was thrust into the world tearing through every path I took. (Quote the drunked man before he continued his life in insanity. "Don't I know you from somewhere? Yeah, I do! You were the one who killed my brother!")

It was inveitable that they would all have to know-to see-the face hidden under the mask. At the moment when my face was seen, my infamy gradually began to melt away. A general statement- "Oh. That's all?"

_("I thought he'd be bigger.")_

They were willing to lay down their life for me and now half of them can't stand to look at their king. No, I'm not their king anymore. Now I'm just a woman, through into the sea of dull grey and second bests. _("You know, I think it explains a lot. Just think about it for a second. It does.")_

It's amazing isn't it? A soldier would hear my name and already begin to dread my forces. I knew that gleam in their eyes that they called contempt was fear. And one thing made that fear into apathy. The ones who practically worshipped the ground I walked on and would give anything to see me decided then that their efforts were somewhat pointless.

I recall they wrote a cadence written by the man they called "Shit wall ghost writer" (called that becuase he wrote poems on the latrines and still to this way he is anonymous) which was used by all the troops sometime at the beginning of the century.

"They say that in Grandara the women are mighty fine

I see they're missing that something fine

One eye good, hacked off leg and missing teeth

"They say when you're with Raizen the food is really good

You can get all you can eat and a cigar at the end

I wouldn't trust a starving man with any of my food

"Long live Mukuro where you get some training

Where you get all the food you need

And the women are just as filling

"So take me there, take me home

And everyone else I should have known."

It's dead now, not just because of the obvious. Some so-called wise man must have announced the news to the media and declared it offensive. (Thye could have cared less about the bit about Raizen. He had just two-thirds of the world against him. And towards his death, Raizen's subjects were more inclined toward me as relations between Raizen and me weren't as bad as those between Yomi and myself.) I could just imagine what they said when they heard the cadence after the news about my sex. "You can't say that about the women! Mukuro IS a woman- what do you think she thought of that line? Get rid of it, fools!"

...Just a woman. We are all so weak, frightened, helpless...

(A man that thought his PhD in psychology meant that he understood everyone's motives from tripping over a step on a stairway to blinking explained the matter, "Well, that explains everything! And I mean everything! That was why she was so hellbent on keeping up special forces and having an army to go with that. She's a woman! She needs a bunch of men so she can sleep at night! She wants to know there is actually a man that would give his life for her- and everyone knows that she needed to hide her hideous face to make sure that option would stay open for her- just like every woman in a war torn society! That's why she can't let go of her new number two, that Hiei, and keeps him as close to her as possible. And why she never let her previous number two Kirin part ways with her. She's notorius for keeping these men who are obviously much stronger than her. If she went to war with Lord yomi she would lose to him hands down!" So says the man who explained why men cheat on their wives- they cheat because they want to sleep with someone other than their wife. Really, Doctor? Are you completely sure?)

...Yet we are so cruel. Men typically torture prisoners using weapons and force whereas women would torture someone psychologically. Years and generations of of women being tortured by loss from war conditioned them to use those tactics. If anything we are much worse than stereotypes give us credit for.

And still we are the gentler sex with tears on our faces...

A few years have passed. It's easy to lose track of days now- there's nothing I'm really waiting for anymore. I guess it's going to have to be years of observation...

Yomi with his pasted on smirk spends his days as Cain, wandering aimlessly from one corner of the world to the next. He's probably just doing it to make sure everyone still knows that he's still alive and wants to make everything right before everyone forgets they were his enemies/ When the next generation comes, he would be lost. (Foot in the door tactics. Forcing everyone to accept his defeat before he has to.)

He drags his son around on a leash claiming that it's so he would know his own home better before he becomes king. (Again, foot in the door tactics.) When the son heard that war was no longer imminent, his only reply, "So what am I going to do when I come to power?"

And Yomi's answer? Simply put, silence is golden and eloquence is silver. Never underestimate the power of confidence.

As for me now...

"I hope everything goes well with your lover Hiei!"

...Whatever.

---

"So what do you think will happen to us now?" Hiei asked. "All of us?"

"I don't know. Disappear into obscurity. Every story that ever came to be would be lost as time goes by. Time destroys cities, kills kings, moves empires and whatnot. The next generation won't give a damn about Youko Kurama because he doesn't pose a threat to anyone anymore. And you too. Unless you wake up one day and decide to murder every one in sight then that's another story." A pause. "If it bothers you so much do something about it. You're young and stupid."

"When did the years turn on you?" No comment. "What I meant was, are we just going to live the rest of our lives like this?"

"You sound like it's a bad thing. Is it really that boring?"

"Yes. Incredibly."

"Really? I thought it would be fun."

"That's fine. Then we could switch places."

"Besides that you're talking to someone who did the same thing for over five hundred years. What does it matter? We'll end up where we will. If you don't know which path to choose then any one will do." Long silence. "If it really bothers you then you can leave. I thought I told you that. You don;t have to worry about search parties going after you either. I'll have that arranged."

"Yeah, I know... There's nothing waiting for me out there either. Nothing that I want to do or anything I need to take care of, really."

"Coincidence."

"I guess you can call it that."

_**And that's all...?**_

_Final Words: ...Why does it seem like everytime I write something like this it seems like I'm repeating myself...? Yeah, I'll just sum up my aim here. This fandom need moar Mukuro. (You gotta admit, sometimes I write in a way that makes me sound full of myself or something and it just gets you laughing. ..Or maybe it's just me laughing at myself. One of the two.)  
__I actually wrote this after listening to Coldplay's Viva la Vida. It turned out way different from what I thought it would be... (I honestly thought of making an AMV... But I remembered why I gave up on the other one...) I'm sure I'd look back at this and think, "What an emo kid." (...You know, I write like the stereotypical one but I'm not really...) And I may come back to fix the cadence. Cadences are really hard to write... (For the record, it's something you say as you march. You see it all the time in these military things. You know there's one written about McDonalds?) And as for the writer... My dad told me about that one. Something about a guy who wrote on the stall walls when he was stationed in Germany. We talk about stuff like that since I joined JROTC...  
__If you were wondering about the century comment... Yeah, I'm leaving it like the manga where it was the late nineties... So it's still the nineties then... If I did my math right... Gah... Come to think of it, who do these monologues refer to...? And why was I indecisive about how I wrote this...? Geh. I might come back to fix this one day. Stupid wordpad and its not having spellcheck. (By the way, I'm still questioning to get Mukuro to at least seven pages... Seventy-seven would be cool too...)_


End file.
